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BIG PHYSICS, BIG QUESTIONS –

As freak weather becomes the norm, we need to adapt

IT HAS been yet another week of extraordinary weather. Torrential rainfall caused chaos across the UK. A record-breaking heatwave drifted across the US, broken by freak thunderstorms that left a trail of destruction from Chicago to Washington DC. Meanwhile, in India and Bangladesh more than 100 people were killed and half a million fled when the monsoon arrived with a vengeance.

We have become used to reports of extreme weather events playing down any connection with climate change. The refrain is usually along the lines of “you cannot attribute any single event to global warming”. But increasingly this is no longer the case. The science of climate attribution – which makes causal connections between climate change and weather events – is advancing rapidly, and with it our understanding of what we can expect in years to come.

From killer heatwaves to destructive floods, the effects of global warming are becoming ever more obvious – and we ain’t seen nothing yet. Our weather is not only becoming more extreme as a result of global warming, it is becoming even more extreme than climate scientists predicted.

The effects of global warming are becoming ever more obvious – and we ain’t seen nothing yet

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Researchers now think they are starting to understand why (see “How global warming is driving our weather wild“). Human activity cannot be held solely responsible for all of these extreme events, but by adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, we have loaded the climate dice. Only political leaders and corporate masters have the power to do anything about that – but they are doing little to help.

Those opposed to cutting emissions sometimes argue that we will simply adapt to a warming world. That is fast becoming a necessity, rather than a choice, but we are doing a lousy job of it. Take the recent devastating forest fires in Colorado. Recent weather conditions have been ideal for them, but they were worsened by forest-management practices that led to a build-up of combustible fuel (see “Humans and nature turn American West into a tinderbox“). Elsewhere in the US, subsidised insurance encourages development in coastal areas that are increasingly at risk from storms and flooding.

China, too, is failing. Most of rapidly growing Shanghai is barely above sea level. The land is sinking and the sea is rising. In a century or two, it will be another New Orleans.

And what sort of extreme events will we have to endure by 2060, when the planet could already be 4 °C hotter and counting? We need to start planning for a future of much wilder weather now, to prepare for ever more ferocious heatwaves, storms, floods and droughts.

For example, building codes should be toughened so that homes and offices can withstand whatever is thrown at them. Vital infrastructure should be situated in areas far from the risk of floods and other natural disasters, as Thailand learned the hard way last year when an economically important industrial site was destroyed by floodwater.

We are in this position as a result of decades of foot-dragging over emissions cuts and clean-energy investment. That was perhaps understandable given the distant and abstract nature of the threat. Now the threat has become a real and present danger. Those who offer blithe reassurances of our ability to adapt need to start putting their money where their mouths are.